The national quarterfinal-bound Hope College volleyball team has much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving:

• A deep, talented and cohesive roster;
• A spot in the NCAA Division III quarterfinals next month in Virginia;
• A third consecutive NCAA Division III regional title; and, 
• perhaps most important to the Flying Dutch, two more weeks together on the court.

The second-ranked Flying Dutch reaped the fruits of their labor on Saturday with a 3-0 victory against No. 12 Millikin University (Illinois) in the Holland, Michigan, regional finale.

Hope (28-2) thrilled a DeVos Fieldhouse crowd of 1,315 by advancing to the national championships on Wednesday-Saturday, Dec. 4-7, at the Cregger Center in Salem, Virginia. The Flying Dutch will be in the same state where they claimed the program's first national title with a five-set victory against Emory University.
 
"I'm super excited. I feel like we're on the up right now," senior outside hitter Addie VanderWeide said. "We're just having so much fun playing together. It's going to be a great trip."

VanderWeide and her teammates sent Hope to the national quarterfinals for the sixth time in program history and for the third consecutive season. The Flying Dutch were national runner-up in 2023, a national semifinalist in 2009 and a national quarterfinalist in 2022 and 2013.

The eight-team field was reseeded following regional play. Joining Hope in Salem will be three-time defending national champion Juniata College (Pennsylvania), Emory University (Georgia), Johns Hopkins University (Maryland), Washington & Lee University (Virginia), University of La Verne (California), the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.

Hope will face Washington and Lee on Dec. 4 at 7 p.m.

VanderWeide (Grand Rapids, Michigan / Grand Rapids Christian HS) was selected as the regional's Most Outstanding Player. 

Senior middle hitter Alison DeWeerd (Kentwood, Michigan / South Christian) and junior setter Lauren Lee (Plymouth, Michigan / Skyline) joined VanderWeide on the seven-player all-tournament team.

VanderWeide recorded 10 kills and a team-high 16 digs while hitting .409. 

DeWeerd collected a match-high 11 kills with a .320 attack percentage. 

Lee directed Hope's multi-faceted attack by collecting a match-high 39 assists and helping sophomore middle blocker Kamryn Burbridge (Grand Haven, Michigan / Grand Haven) hit .909 and finish with 10 kills.

Owners of a 20-match winning streak, the Flying Dutch drew praise from Millikin head coach Whitney Nichols, whose team finished with a 31-6 record.

Hope hit .297 as a team to Millikin's .134.

"Their pace is incredible," Nichols said. "They've got to push tempo hard to where that made us, I would say, kind of, overthink on our end. They attacked us very well."

The Flying Dutch held off late rallies from Millikin in both the second and third sets. The Big Blue tied the score at 22-22 in both sets before Hope closed each set.

Hope swept all three regional opponents this week.

"I want to congratulate Millikin on a tremendous season and a very hard-fought match. I thought they continued to fight throughout the night and did a tremendous job of making adjustments and finding ways to make things uncomfortable for us," head coach Becky Schmidt said. " I was really impressed by our poise down the stretch. I thought our defense down the stretch opened a lot of opportunities for us.

"I thought when we were able to get to the middle and create some opportunities our middles did a great job of keeping Millikin out of rhythm. I was really impressed, when we had those opportunities to take big swings from the pins, we were able to have a little more court to work with because of what we were trying to expose with our middles. "

Added DeWeerd, "I think we did a really good job of pushing and pulling, hitting every different shot. That was the name of the game against a team that's just got a strong defense back there."